In recent years, BS digital broadcasting using broadcasting satellites has been entering commercial service. In digital broadcasting, not only is program video transmitted, but tagged information is also broadcasted which is called data broadcasting. This information includes, for example, real-time information such as news and weather forecasts, detailed information related to program content and advertised merchandise, and the URLs of their related Internet home pages. Furthermore, by connecting a television terminal to the broadcaster via a telephone line, the user can respond to a quiz program, can participate in an opinion poll conducted in a program, or can transmit real-time information on which program or which advertisement the user is watching.
A technology for transmitting the URLs of Internet home pages to television terminals in such data broadcasting is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H10-164529. This prior art technology enables the television terminal to connect to the Internet by using the URL transmitted via digital broadcasting and to bring the desired home page onto the display for viewing. Furthermore, information related to the travel spot currently being broadcast on television or radio, such as a spa, a theme park, or a restaurant that offers good-tasting food, can also be broadcast as a data broadcast together with video, and further detailed information. The detailed information may include the travel destination, reservation status, etc., which can be obtained by using the URL provided by the data broadcast.
On the other hand, a technology for providing various pieces of travel destination information (route guidance, sightseeing information, etc.) to in-vehicle information terminals via the Internet is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-215211. According to this prior art technology, travel destination information is described in XML (eXtensible Markup Language), an Internet description language, to perform various kinds of control such as the generation of a display and voice guidance on the in-vehicle information terminal.
However, with the above prior art technologies, data received by a television terminal can only be used on that television terminal. That is, the home page offering the various kinds of travel destination information, which is specified by the URL received by the television terminal via data broadcasting, can only be accessed from that television terminal. As a result, when the user travels by car at a later date to the place reported in the broadcast, the user has to go through the following procedure if he wants to set the destination into the in-vehicle information terminal or to access the home page offering the travel destination information from the in-vehicle information terminal.
First, the user jots down the address, telephone number, map, URL, etc. of a travel destination broadcasted in the program on memo paper. Then, when traveling by car at a later date, the user, while looking at the handwritten memo, sets the destination into the in-vehicle information terminal or enters the URL of the travel destination information and accesses the home page providing real-time information. In this way, the user has had to go through the cumbersome procedure of entering the necessary information into the in-vehicle information terminal by looking at the handwritten memo. Furthermore, there has been the problem that the user may fail to enter the destination information correctly, for example, because he had jotted down the wrong information or, if the memo is lost, the user has to rely on vague memory and, in the worst case, has to abandon the plan to drive to that place.
In this way, when actually traveling by car, if the user wants to use navigational information such as the travel destination information obtained from a broadcast program, the user has to go to the trouble of manually re-entering the navigational information.
Furthermore, when actually traveling by car, if the user wants to use navigational information such as the travel destination information obtained from a broadcast program, there is the possibility that since the necessary information has to be re-entered manually, the navigational information may be entered incorrectly, or the navigational information itself may be lost.